BlackSnow Threatens Funcom

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Real life MMO merchants are ready to sue over suspicion of cheating.

By Steve Butts

On or about January 20, Funcom suspended 22 Anarchy Online accounts belonging to employees of BlackSnow Interactive, a company that has made a business out of selling and trading items in popular massively multiplayer online games. Two weeks ago the law firm representing BlackSnow Interactive sent Funcom a letter threatening legal action unless the accounts and all accompanying items were reinstated by Friday, March 8th. Funcom stated today that they have no intention of reactivating the accounts.

To get the full story, we contacted BlackSnow's sales director Lee Caldwell and Funcom's US public relations manager April Jones.

The problem first appeared when Funcom's database alerted the administrator to a few instances of speed leveling. One account in particular managed to make it from level 6 to level 27 in just under ten minutes. Further investigation into the matter revealed that several of the irregularities occurred on numerous accounts accessed from the same IP subnet. From there, Funcom performed a cursory check on all the accounts accessed from the subnet. They discovered several characters with "stacks of 10K+ items" and stacks of 750 Clan and Omni tokens. As a rule Funcom doesn't allow the duplication or trading of items that are designated as rare or unique.

Funcom alleges that these occurrences are not achievable through lawful means and has summarily banned the 22 accounts in question. "We take cheating very seriously," says Funcom's US PR manager, "and we are doing what we can to stop it from happening." Funcom further stated they "will not reactivate any accounts that have been banned for exploiting."

BlackSnow asserts that they've obtained all items and levels in complete accordance with Anarchy Online's terms of service. The rapid character leveling was achieved through a wholly legal macro designed to combine clusters and implants at a quick enough pace to accumulate an entire level's worth of experience in a very short time. BlackSnow states that their AO accounts have leveled through repeated and rapid use of skills within the game.

"We've been leveling characters the same way for months," according to BlackSnow's representative. It's only Funcom's recent removal of a delay in combining clusters and implants that caused such sudden level increases to seem suspicious. The stacked items, says Caldwell, are simply left over from the days when these items were stackable. Funcom says they have evidence to the contrary.

BlackSnow's also upset over the unprofessional manner in which Funcom is handling this matter. "They didn't ever ban our accounts," says Caldwell. "They just had a rogue employee shaking us down in a very unprofessional way. We've had accounts banned in other games for macroing -- like in UO. What do you get? A letter indicating what you've done wrong and indicating what the action is going to be."